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Beardless Irises – and Giveaway

I recently reviewed Beardless Irises: A plant for every garden situation and now Schiffer publishing is offering a Giveaway of this beautiful, fascinating and useful book.

I have been reading Beardless Irises: A Plant for Every Garden Situation by Keven C. Vaughn and published by Schiffer. My own experience with beardless irises is with Siberian irises which are one of the most beautiful and easy care flowers in the world, and Japanese irises which often have a flatter flower and are truly spectacular. I never knew that beardless irises ranged from the sweet and petite, to the tall and stunning spurias.

I never knew anything about Pacific coast native irises which we cannot really grow in our area because of the winters, but amazingly Louisiana irises, and spuria irises are definite possibilities. I will never take the iris family for granted again.

Vaughn is a scholar, hybridizer and has a PhD in plant genetics. He gives us common gardeners the information about whether a particular type of iris will thrive in our climate, as well as the usual cultural info about soil, fertilizer and sun requirements, but the book is also rich in the stories of hybridizers and their work. If you like to know how a stunning plant came to be, or even how to create your own hybrids, this is the book for you.

If you would like a chance to win a copy of this book with its stunning photographs of the many varieties and cultivars of beardless irises, all you have to do is leave a comment below. Perhaps you have a favorite iris to mention. I will have a drawing for this book on Wednesday, August 19. Good luck!

Hi Pat, don’t enter me into the drawing because someone else should win. I get too much already. I wanted to tell you how pretty your garden is though. Simply lovely. My blackberry lilies haven’t done much for two years. I wonder if I should live them this fall and put them elsewhere. Maybe they are too crowded with other things. I think I’ll ask Fairegarden what she thinks. Happy Bloom Day my friend!~~Dee

I am a new follower of your blog but this book just makes me nostalgic and yearn for my mother’s beautiful garden. I don’t know the type of irises she grew but they were just spectacular. She passed away a few years ago and the garden went to seed but the memories will be with me forever.